2nd Round at McKinsey & Company

I am currently preparing for my second (and final) round of interviews at McKinsey for an Internship in the Netherlands.

I heard that the second round at McK (2 partner interviews) is slightly different than the first round (1x fit only, 2x case + PEI). To be more specific, I heard that the cases might be more candidate-led and, in some occasions, the interviewer even decided to leave out a case and only talk about personal experience / fit.

Does somebody of you have experience in this matter (or perhaps knows somebody who has been in this situation)?

Fit interview question are the same at McKinsey interviews on both rounds (Why mck, why consulting, story about you, 3 stories on competencies)

Here is what I wrote for similar question re case types in this forum:

It greatly depends on with whom are you having an interview.

Engagement managers (1st round interviews if you think of phone interview as round 0) generally use Mck casebooks and normaly make interviewer-led interviews. In this case they ask you a) To make a structure (issue tree) b) to drill down in some branch of your structure and calculate something. Or they may even ask to analyze smth unrelated to the structure c) question on creativity (e,g, list 10 ways to increase revenues). However you should be ready for both type of interviews at this point

Partners and directors have their own favorite cases and mainly want you to lead. The key difference:

You ask clarifying questions in the beginning and make a structure

You lead the case through the structure you've prepared a) asking questions and trying to identify the root-cause of the problem in the branch of your structure b) making a transition to the next branch c) proactively calculating the data and making data-driven conclusion from the data they give you d) Making a conclusion when they ask you to finish a case

It may seem for you that these 2 types of cases are diferent, however the interviewer-led type is just a simplified version of the interviewee-led case. My advice is to always prepare in interviewee-led format so that you could solve both easily.

Having secured McKinsey offers even without final-round interviews due to my High-Impact Interview Coaching

While first round interviews are highly standardized especially at McKinsey, in second-round interviewers bascially everything can happen.

The main idea of second/final round interviews is to ensure your performance in those areas in which you did not convince McKinsey in the first round interviews. This can be either the case interview or the McKinsey PEI, or both. Whatever it is, your weak points from first round interviews are where you can expect a strong focus in the second/final round interviews.